Steve Hochstadt Posts

Over three weeks ago, a group of armed men occupied the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in eastern Oregon. The armed stand-off between the occupiers of a federal reserve and everyone else turns on a fundamental disagreement about democratic government and public property in America.

It looks like the biggest corporate scandal of 2015 will be the cheating by Volkswagen on emissions tests, which might come to be called Volksgate. The scale is breath-taking. Since 2008 Volkswagen made 11 million diesel cars designed to cheat on emissions tests. These cars could never have passed the tests. They produce 10 to 40 times the legal limit of nitrogen oxides.

Hippies have a bad reputation, especially among conservatives. In 1967, the “National Review” said that hippies were self-indulgent and had a “horrified rejection of work and production”. Their thinking, “if indeed thinking it can be called, is more like orgiastic love-spluttering than coherent thought.” They might cause “outbreaks of polio and typhoid”.

It has happened before that people outside of a significant international negotiation have chimed in, trying to push their own agenda. It is not unprecedented in American history for a political party to advocate a foreign policy of its own, even when it does not have executive power. But for both to happen, for members of one Congressional party to throw doubt on the position of the President, while he and other world leaders are dealing with Iran’s nuclear threat, that’s unique.

What happened on Election Day? The obvious thing that happened was that Democrats got trounced. However, a very high percentage of the issues that Democrats helped put on ballots across the country — minimum wage hikes, additional taxes on incomes over $1 million, and protections for birth control — easily passed, even in districts that overwhelmingly voted for Republicans. But why?

This November, one Illinois county will band together to try and tax themselves more, in the hope of offsetting a drop in funds for public education. In this op-ed, resident Steve Hochstadt urges a YES vote.

Conservatives are afraid that if they admit that global warming is happening and that we can do something about it, that would mean more public spending, more public regulations, the American public operating through our government to save the future of our society. That is correct, unless they can develop workable non-governmental methods to accomplish the same goals. They don’t think they can, so they close their eyes and repeat “la-la-la-la” as loud as they can.

A recent surveycompared what Americans wanted to do about the situation in Ukraine with their ability to locate Ukraine on a map. Only one in six placed Ukraine properly in southeastern Europe. Respondents put Ukraine all over Africa and Asia, even in Canada and in the U.S. The average answer was about 1800 miles off. Partisan voters on both sides did poorly compared to independents. The survey’s authors concluded, “The farther their guesses were from Ukraine’s actual location, the more they wanted the U.S. to intervene with military force.”

Payday lenders loan money at exorbitant interest rates, and directly aim their sights on those that can ill-afford to pay them. It's grotesque to see companies take advantage of the already needy, but even more so to see Republican operatives fully support these nefarious practices.

Tea party candidates, though much diminished since their 2010 showing, are still a major contender in American politics. But who are they, and what do they stand for (or rather, just how insane are their positions)?

An impromptu conversation with Jim Watson, a former Illinois Congressman and Republican, at a supermarket begs larger questions, namely, of the partisanship and vitriol that has come to define the far right. Watson would be considered a RINO by his militant compatriots, but we need more like him, more willing to have a conversation with those with whom they don't agree.

Small business owner Steve Hochstadt wants politicians to cash the checks their mouths have been writing. Politicians love to talk about how much they love small business, but when you look at policy, it seems all that largesse goes to multinationals, Walmart and oil companies – the polar opposite of the American small business ideal.

In 1970, women rarely appeared as historians. They showed up even more rarely as subjects for historians: of the 117 books reviewed, only one had a woman’s name in the title, and none of the titles included the words “women,” “gender,” or “family.” Men’s names appeared in about one-third of the titles. In the 43 years since, the history profession has changed dramatically, leading to new avenues of historical exploration.

In 2011, 20.8 million households received food stamps, and one-quarter of these consisted of an elderly or a disabled person living alone. One-sixth were unemployed single people living alone. The rest were mainly households with children, most of whom are headed by a single parent, and 13 percent of whom have no adult at all. That last group totals 1.3 million households of only children, about 2.6 million children. Lazy freeloaders, all of 'em!

Israel's gross domestic product per capita places it among the richest nations in the world, similar to France and Japan. It ranks 10th in the world in percentage of its population who are millionaires. And yet, the U.S. gives its ally approximately $4.5 billion annually.

All too frequently, religious fundamentalists of various faiths demand that everyone must follow their rules. The controversy across our states about marriage equality is a home-grown example. Citing their interpretation of the Bible, American fundamentalists want our government to enshrine their views of homosexuality into secular law.

Most people have an opinion about our health care system and its costs, but most people don’t know any more than I do. In fact, wrong ideas a bout the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) are responsible for most of the opposition to it.